192 pages : 24 x 27 cm

Women pilots took to the skies soon after the Wright brothers, but only a handful - Harriet Quimby, Amelia Earhart, and Sally Ride, for example - have been recognized for their contributions to aviation. Now, with this unique book, Carolyn Russo and the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum set the record straight by celebrating America's unsung pilots. Ninety spectacular duotone photographs, accompanied by extensive interviews and biographical sketches, capture thirty-six women aviators and astronauts from all walks of airborne life. The range of the women included is inspiring, from an eighty-eight-year-old who still operates an airfield to the first woman assigned to fly a Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft for the U.S. Air Force; from the only Eskimo woman aviator in Alaska, Ellen Paneok - or "Owl Eyes" to the Eskimo elders - to Shannon Lucid, the astronaut who set an American record for length of time in space

Here are women in commercial and military occupations: a skywriter, a crop duster, an aerial photographer, a cattle herder, a helitack pilot, sport aviators, and several women in the U.S. Armed Forces, including one of the first female Navy combat pilots. For anyone interested in aviation and space flight, women trailblazers, and photography, Women and Flight is a fascinating journey of discovery

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